More anti-worker, anti-immigrant bills are being rushed through the Iowa state capitol, and it’s important that each of us speak up to our legislators against them. While lawmakers continue to make life easier for billionaire corporations by eliminating rules that protect Iowans, lowering wages, and handing away millions in corporate welfare, they are playing an age-old game of divide and conquer by scapegoating our immigrant brothers and sisters for growing inequality. Please call your legislator today to oppose these bills:

Senate File 172 would make the flawed E-Verify system mandatory for most Iowa employers. This system checks workers’ photos, names, and social security numbers against several federal databases that are riddled with errors due to name changes related to marriage, changes in immigration status that aren’t yet recorded, and typos. It creates a burden for both workers and employers, and is just a complicated duplication of the I-9 system already required in every workplace. It doesn’t raise wages or improve our workplaces and has led to charges of discrimination across the country.

House File 265 would prohibit the state, counties, cities, and state-funded schools from adopting policies that restrict their participation in federal immigration enforcement. Our cities, counties, and schools have the right to prioritize their limited resources toward fulfilling their primary mission – creating safe neighborhoods and learning environments so that all Iowans can thrive, not tearing apart our communities and tearing apart local families.

We invite you to attend the monthly meeting of members of the Center, where you will hear news from the community, the work being done; Updates on immigration and what we are doing to protect the community, we will also talk about the education of our children, theft of wages and affordable housing.
We will have Daycare !

This is an open invitation to our Allies in Iowa City, join the Membership Meeting & find out how you can support our immigrant’s Community on this political moment.…

On February 7, Republican lawmakers in Des Moines filed bills that constitute an all-out attack on workers in every city, county, and school district in our state. CWJ President Mazahir Salih and Vice-President Irund A-wan joined hundreds of union and community members at the capitol yesterday to speak out against these attacks.

House Study Bill 92 would take away the minimum wage increase our members fought so hard to pass, and throw tens of thousands of Iowa workers back to the poverty minimum of $7.25. It would ban local governments from passing any laws or resolutions that provide higher standards than state or federal law on any issue related to workers’ rights, as well as certain consumer environmental protections.

House Study Bill 84/ Senate File 213 is an extreme proposal that strips away over 100 years of basic civil service and union rights of public service workers – such as teachers, firefighters, secretaries, and snowplow drivers. It removes civil service protections established in the early 1900s to prevent nepotism and corruption, allows workers to be fired for any reason and without cause, makes it illegal for public workers to negotiate with their employer over any working conditions except raises, and contains provisions to dismantle public workers’ unions.

This is devastating to our state, our workers, and our public services. Please join us in calling our state legislators today to reject these attacks on the people of Iowa!

Join us our Allies meeting to continue discussing the actions community allies can take to support low-wage workers and immigrants. Through community support, CWJ has been able to assist hundreds of workers to recover over $65,000 in wage theft, create one of the first Community ID programs in the Midwest, and raise the county's minimum wage to ensure a higher standard of living for our community's families. We're currently working on multiple affordable, safe housing campaigns, immigration response, and continued work listening and responding to our community.